In the Land of the Sandgropers.

After picking up father’s day present (Bourbon flavored coffee from El Salvador & Chocolate Turkish delights from Turkey, all via London and closely inspected by Aus Customs for traces of foot & mouth) we headed off west to new lands for us. The next stop was at timber creek for the night, watched the croc feeding and left our Humpty Doo honey at the local school as you can’t take it into WA. Next day we crossed the WA/NT border and on to Kunnanurra. I covered the border crossing and Kunnanurra in the last blog.

After a week there we headed on west into the Kimberley. This was a big day as our destination was a free camp called Mary Pool, 570 klm. We traveled through beautiful rocky hills and more interesting scenery than the flat terrain of NT. (If you saw the video on face book, it was filmed here) Stopped at Turkey Creek for coffee and happened to park near a pest control man who was spraying the motel units for pests. Sue approached him and asked, “what was the best treatment for ants in the caravan?” and he ended up giving it a free fumigate for us. You should have seen the number of dead ants and other insects when we next stopped. We had lunch at Halls Creek and got to Mary Pool about 4pm. It was about 40 degrees there with a strong wind blowing so we were glad when dusk came and it cooled down a bit as we had no electricity to drive the fan there, but the night was ok. Next morning was a short run into Fitzroy Crossing and we were there by 10am. We stayed in a very nice van park there, lots of shade and grass and a big, cool pool. Fitzroy Crossing has been in the news a lot recently due to the problems in the aboriginal community with suicide, domestic violence and abuse resulting from alcohol and drug abuse. They have banned all alcohol sales there now except for low alcohol beer, for a 12 month trial period. It is really sad to see the problems created by alcohol and boredom in many of the WA towns.

From Fitzroy Crossing we went on to Derby where we spent 4 days. It was an interesting town with lots of history and galleries and museums to visit. It is famous for its big old boab trees some over 1000 years old, and its tides up to 11 meters rise and fall. The highlight of our visit there was a flight in a small plane (just Sue & I) over the Buccaneer Archipelago to see the “horizontal waterfall” which is caused by tide water rushing through two small gaps in the landscape. The tide rises and falls so fast that the water cannot escape through the gap so will be two or three meters higher on one side then the other (see the photos). You can go on a sea plane tour that lands and then takes you through the rushing water in a jet boat, but ours was a fly over only. The trip was spectacular though, seeing the Kimberley landscape and islands from the air as the sun was setting. We enjoyed Derby and caught up with some old friends of Dennis Wright. They have been living there for a few years so it was good to talk to some locals about their lifestyle.

Next town to visit was Broome as we had arranged for a new side for my glasses to be sent there from Sue’s Safilo connections. We were not able to stay in Broome as none of the six caravan parks there accept dogs. This is the only town in Australia that you cannot find a place to stay with pets. In fact next year it will be hard to stay there with a caravan as three of the six parks are closing this year for the developers to convert to holiday villas for the moneyed visitors to Broome. This year the six parks were full booked for the winter months. There are lots of building works and new road construction happening there, it is booming, but not caravan or dog friendly. We stayed three nights at the Roebuck Plains roadhouse & caravan park which is 34 klm from Broome and we traveled in each day until the mail arrived. Olly, Sue & I enjoyed a few swims at Cable Beach, we watched the “stair case to the moon”.

We stocked up on supplies for the 610klm trip south to Port Hedland, on which we planned to take our time visiting the beauty of the WA coast. However, we did not take into consideration that this road passes along the edge of the Great Sandy Desert with 40 degree winds pushing up the red dust that goes right down to the beach to meet the sand fly ridden mangroves. Not one of the most enjoyable sections of coast. To get from the highway to the coast you traverse 10 to 23 klm gravel roads (depending where you are going) of red bull dust. We stayed one night at Barn Hill station, which was hot & dusty but had nice open air bathrooms and a nice beach. Then two nights at Port Smith where the caravan park warns you to cover up from the sand flys, We did at dawn & dusk but still were attacked at any time of the day. We went for a drive following information provided by the caravan park only to be reprimanded by some of the local “brothers” for being on their land without a permit, when we stopped to ask directions. We departed the area with the feeling that they are welcome to it. Fortunately the caravan park at 80 mile beach does not allow dogs so we did not have to venture in there and headed on to “Sandfire” roadhouse (aptly named) for fuel, then Pardoo roadhouse (where we should have stayed as it had grass) and onto Port Headland, having taken four days to travel a section we hoped would take two or three weeks.

As we entered Port Hedland we saw the Port Headland Caravan Park opposite the airport, with its own pub and roadhouse, it looked to be very full with lots of permanents, but it took dogs. We went looking for another one that was listed in the NRMA guide but found it was closed down and as the other two had no dog signs it was back to the first one where we got one of the last sites, with a nice westerly view over the highway. I went to the roadhouse to see if they had the Weekend Australian yet (as it was Monday) and found the biggest selection of porn on open display, in a service station I have ever seen. It must be a lonely life for the truckers and mine workers that inhabit Port Hedland. We probably did not give Port Hedland a fair go as we left the next day, but what we saw of it looked just like a flat dusty mining port with a huge stockpile of salt and unending iron ore trains as its main tourist attractions. I watched a mine train go by the caravan park and even though the landscape was flat I could not see either end of the train, as far as the eye could see.

Next town was only 200klm down the road to Karratha to stay in a park recommended to us in Port Headland, but again it was fairly basic and packed with permanent mine workers etc. We looked in the tourist information booklet and saw there was a new caravan park at Point Samson nearby so I called them and booked in for the next day. Next morning we toured Karratha, Dampier and the Burrup peninsular where the huge North West Shelf gas project is situated. We had a look at the visitors centre there and the enormity of this project has to be seen to be believed. The coastal scenery is attractive with red and rocky hills contrasted against the tropical aqua color of the ocean. Again more salt stockpiles and long trains.

We arrived at the Cove Caravan Park, opened in June 2006, that afternoon and it has green grass, nice concrete sites, a view of the ocean and a nice cove to swim in at high tide. Point Samson is a small village with a pub and general store, two caravan parks, some nice tourist villas, a fishing port and some multi million dollar holiday homes. It has a big tidal sandy beach and while it has sand flys we have been able to avoid too many bites in the week we have stayed here. Olly is enjoying having a swim here again although he picked up another tick yesterday, but it caused no harm. We have visited Cossack and Roebourne , two small historic towns that were established by the first settlers in the late 1800s. Many of the original buildings are still standing as they were built of the red ironstone rocks that litter the landscape here. The early settlers certainly did it hard in this hot, dry cyclone prone environment and the aboriginal experiences of the times are interesting to say the least. Cossack was the old port and is now a ghost town except for the museum, gallery and café. Roebourne is still an operational town with the shire office, a mainly aboriginal population and the visitors centre/ museum located in the old goal which was used as goal from the late 1800s right up to the 1970s.

Well that has you up to date, we will go from here to Exmouth in the coming days and hopefully stay some time there and at Coral Bay, which we have been told is beautiful being adjacent to the Ningaloo reef. Hopefully no sand flys.

Love to all, Sue, Chris & Olly